The invention disclosed herein relates generally to automated mail sorting and more particularly, a method for updating an addressee database in an incoming mail sorting apparatus.
The processing and handling of mailpieces consumes an enormous amount of human and financial resources, particularly if the processing of the mailpieces is done manually. The processing and handling of mailpieces not only takes place at the Postal Service, but also occurs at each and every business or other site where communication via the mail delivery system is utilized. That is, various pieces of mail generated by a plurality of departments and individuals within a company need to be addressed, collected, sorted and franked as part of the outgoing mail process. Additionally, incoming mail needs to be collected and sorted efficiently to ensure that it gets to the addressee in a minimal amount of time. Since much of the documentation and information being conveyed through the mail system is critical in nature relative to the success of a business, it is imperative that the processing and handling of both the incoming and outgoing mailpieces be done efficiently and reliably so as not to negatively impact the functioning of the business.
In view of the above, various automated mail handling machines have been developed for processing mail (removing individual pieces of mail from a stack and performing subsequent actions on each individual piece of mail). Individual mailpieces are separated from a stack, read using an optical character recognition system (OCR) and compared to an addressee database in order to determine the appropriate destination points for delivery of the mailpieces. The addressee database can contain hundreds or even thousands of addressee names, such as names of employees of a company for which incoming mailpieces are being sorted for delivery. The accurate delivery of mailpieces is dependent upon the correctness of the addressee database. Because the database contains information about many employees and each employee can move, have a name change, title change or some other change affecting the addressee database, it is difficult to keep the database current. Thus, a method is needed to maintain the database at a company location which allows employees to participate by initiating the database update.
Previously, databases have been maintained by software developers and/or database managers; however, this requires considerable time and expense. It is impractical to require a software developer and/or database manager to reprogram the software to update the database each time one of numerous employees changes a name, location, title, department, etc. Addressee databases have also been maintained by providing kiosks in public locations for persons to use to input address change information. However, this equipment is expensive and, because it is only available in a few locations, it is not easily accessible by most addressees.
Other systems, such as mail forwarding systems read mailpieces that are addressed to an old or obsolete address, determine that those mailpieces require a new address and generate a new address label from a separate database. The label is then affixed to the mailpiece. The addressee database is not updated. The system requires removing the obsoletely addressed mailpieces from the mailstream being sorted, re-addressing the mailpieces and reintroducing the mailpieces to the mailstream.
Thus, one of the problems of the prior art is that a system is not available for employees to initiate database changes using available equipment. Another problem of the prior art is that it is expensive and time consuming, requiring reprogramming or database management. Yet another problem of the prior art is that it does not provide a data base update and requires that mailpieces be removed from the mailstream for readdressing. Therefore, a method that allows for easy updating that is not time consuming or expensive is needed for addressee database updating.
This invention overcomes the disadvantages of the prior art by providing an easily accessible method of updating an addressee database. The foregoing is accomplished by providing a method that can be initiated by an addressee or other party wishing to provide an update. Thus, each employee of a company could become responsible for maintenance of his or her own data in the database. For instance, this may be accomplished by sending a mailpiece through an incoming mail sorting apparatus, the envelope having a special address, with coding designating the change of address identified in the top left hand corner of the return block. The optical character recognition (OCR) will scan, read and change the address information accordingly.
Thus, the present invention is directed to, in a general aspect, a method of updating an addressee database in an incoming mail sorting apparatus comprising the steps of: a) providing the addressee database stored in memory associated with the mail sorting apparatus; b) providing a mailpiece to be read and sorted by the mail sorting apparatus; c) reading the mailpiece to determine whether the mailpiece is an update form; d) reading update information from the mailpiece if the mailpiece is an update form; and e) updating addressee information as required by the update information on the update form. The method can be initiated by each individual employee using a readily available form and providing information manually to the form or by using a software program accessible through the use of a personal computer to generate the update form information.
Thus, an advantage of the method of the present invention is that it provides an accessible method of updating a database. Another advantage of the present invention is that it provides a method of updating that reduces programming costs. Yet another advantage of the present invention is that it does not require special equipment assistance for performing updates. Other advantages of the invention will in part be obvious and will in part be apparent from the specification. The aforementioned advantages are illustrative of the advantages of the various embodiments of the present invention.